Egil’s Saga (45 page)

3
S
HIELD-WAINSCOT
(skjaldþili). Probably because of the custom of hanging shields and weapons on the wall; cf.
ch.
XI
.

4
M
ADE SLAVES OF
(þjáðir). Cf.
þýr
, ‘a bondwoman’. The same word is used of King Harald’s ‘enslavement’ of Norway, pp. 3 and 6.

5
T
HAT SHAME
. Egil’s moral scruples had an unfortunate effect so far as his late captors were concerned. He is shocked at the idea of an unavowed theft, but with an easy conscience puts it right by owning up, and at the same time burning the whole houseful, men and all.

CHAPTER XLVII

1
H
ARALD
G
ORMSON
. King of Denmark circ. 936–86. The chronology of the saga seems at fault here (F.J.). For his support of Gunnhild and her sons, and later betrayal of King Harald Greycloak: his relations with the great Earl Hakon: his defence of the Danework against Kaiser Otto: his forced christening by the Kaiser: and his death in war against his rebellious son Svein Twi-beard, see Hkr. (Hak., Har. Gr. and O.T.).
Jómsvíkinga Saga
gives a shocking but perhaps not very reliable account of his end, at the hands of Palnatoki, the famous captain of the Jomsburg vikings.

2
S
TAVE
. ‘Stainer of the wolf’s teeth’ (úlfs tannlitoþr)—
warrior;
addressed to Thorolf. ‘Dalefish-bounty’s season’ (dalmiskunn fiska; lit. ‘dale-mercy
or
bounty of fishes’, by transposition for ‘dale-fishes’ mercy
or
bounty’), an elaborate ‘double-decked’ kenning for
summer
, the season that extends mercy or bounty to the
snake
, which is commonly called poetically ‘fish’ of the dale, etc., cf.

Fish of the wild-wood,

Worm smooth-crawling,

With wolf-meat mingled,

They minced for Gutthorm. (Vols. 30.)

3
T
REE-BURG
(tréborg). A fence or palisade of wooden stakes or logs.

CHAPTER XLVIII

1
P
EACE-LAND
(friðland). Finding that the burglar is not intent on
your
spoons and forks (because you haven’t got any), you ask him to stay to supper. Normandy was
friðland
to Norse vikings (O.H. 19).

2
S
TAVE
. ‘Wound-partridge’ (benþiþorr)—
the raven.
The last couplet is bloodthirsty enough—

létom blóþga búka

í borghliþe sœfask.

3
G
OING ON THE FLOOR AT EVERY HEALTH
. I.e. men stood up from their seats on either side of the hall and drank to one another over the long fires that went down the middle. Cf. King Athelstane’s reaching the ring across to Egil on his sword point,
ch.
LV
.

4
This conversation between Eric and Gunnhild is an instance of the concentrated character-drawing of which the sagas are full.

5
To
DRAG ON
(draga framm). The ordinary sense is to ‘breed up, rear’. F.J. says it is here ironical, “to allow Skallagrim’s sons to live until”, etc. Or it may mean to “show favour” to them. I have followed F.J.

CHAPTER XLIX

1
E
YVIND
B
RAGGART AND
A
LF
. Cf. the account in Hkr. of the battle of Fitiar in Stord, some 35 years later: “The brethren [Gunnhild’s sons] had there a great host from out of Denmark; and there were in their company their mother’s brethren, Eyvind Braggart and Alf Ashman, both strong men and stout, and the greatest of man-slayers.…King Hakon [Athelstane’s-fosterling] was easy to know above other men, for his helm flashed again when the sun shone on it.…Then took Eyvind Finnson a hat and did it over the king’s helm. But forthright Eyvind Braggart cried out on high: ‘Doth now the king of the Northmen hide? or is he fled away? where is gotten the golden helm?’ Forth then went Eyvind and Alf his brother with him, smiting on either hand, andjnaking as they were mad or raging. But King Hakon cried on high to Eyvind:’ Keep thou the road wherein thou art,
if thou wouldst find the king of the Northmen’.…But little was the while to bide ere thither came Eyvind and hove up sword and smote on the king; but Thoralf thrust forth his shield against him, so that Eyvind staggered; and the king took his sword Quern-biter in both hands, and smote down on Eyvind’s helm and clove helm and head down to the shoulders. Therewith Thoralf slew Alf Ashman.…And anon therewith fell terror and fleeing among the folk of Eric’s sons” (Hak. 29, 31). For Alf’s later appearance in our Saga, see
ch.
LVI
. On the question whether he and Eyvind were really the Queen’s brothers, see note on
‘Gunnhild’
.

2
G
UNNHILD’S TONGUE…THE
K
ING’S MIGHT
. Cf. the somewhat similar phrase used by Arinbiorn, p. 162.

3
H
AD SLAIN IN THE SANCTUARY
(hafði vegit í véum).
Vargr ί véum
, a ‘wolf in the sanctuary’; a law-phrase, metaph.
an outlaw
, who is to be hunted down as a wolf and is declared accursed for having committed a crime in a holy place (
D.
s.v.
vargr
).

4
S
TAVE
. ‘From back of wave-steed’ (af unnar heste)—
off his ship.

CHAPTER L

1
P
RIME-SIGNED.
Prίmsigna
is to give the
prima signatio
or
signa-culum crucis.

CHAPTER LI

1
O
LAF THE
R
ED
. See general note on ‘Winaheath’,
here
.

2
R
AGNAR
H
AIRYBREEKS
(Ragnarr Loðbnók). The history of this great Danish king is clouded with legend. There is a mythical
Ragnars Saga
, some passages in Saxo’s chronicle, a
páttr
(or short tale) of Ragnar’s sons, and some poems, notably the
Krákumál
dating from the twelfth century; these seem all to be connected with the lost
Skjöldunga Saga
(the lives of the Kings of Denmark). For the viking expeditions of Ragnar and his sons, see
Cambridge Medieval History
, vol. 111, pp. 318–19, 329–31. His end (first half of the ninth century) was that, being minded to bring England under him, he was shipwrecked on the Northumberland coast, and taken alive by King Ella who “set him in a worm-close”. Here, like Gunnar of old, he died singing, and the
Krákumál
purports to be his death-song. His sons, Sigurd Worm-in-Eye, Biorn Ironside, Ivar the Boneless, and Whitesark, made conquests and ruled in many lands. They avenged their father by what seems to have been the approved method, viz. by cutting ‘an erne’ on Ella’s back: cf. Har. Hfr. 31, where Earl Turf-Einar cut an erne on the back of Halfdan High-leg, the slayer of his father Earl Rognvald, “in such wise, that, he thrust his sword into the hollow of the body by the backbone, and sheared apart all the ribs down to the loins, and thereby drew out the lungs”. The names of Ragnar and his sons are frequent in genealogies.

CHAPTER LII

1
S
TAVE
. Second couplet, lit. ‘I learn that prince is thing-hard’; i.e. an unpleasant person at a meeting (poetical
meiosis
for the ‘Thing of weapons’, or battle).

Third couplet,

Glapstígo 1ét gnóga

Goþrekr á mó troþna;

lit.’ Godrek let tread stray-paths enough on the moor’, i.e. let (himself) tread the path of death. Cf. Völospá,
troða halir hel-veg
, ‘men tread the way of hell’. ‘Alfgeir’s land’ is, of course, Northumberland.

2
H
AZEL A FIELD
(hasla völl). I.e. stake it off with hazel-poles as a field for battle. Cf. Hak. 24; O.T. 18.

3
W
INAHEATH
(Vínheiðr). Much has been written in the attempt to identify this place and this battle. There are serious difficulties about the chronology of the English episodes. According to the saga, Egil helped King Athelstane in a great battle against Scots and others at Winaheath. In that battle Thorolf fell, and a year (or two years) later Egil married his widow, and went home to Iceland where he remained several years. He came back to Norway and strove with Bergonund at the Gula-Thing the year before Eric Bloodaxe was driven out of Norway. The year after that event (i.e. in 936) he sailed for England again, fell into Eric’s hands in York, and once more visited Athelstane.

The description of the battle of Winaheath agrees with what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other sources tell us of the battle of Brunan-burh (which, it should be noted, is in one place called ‘Wendune’). Except the saga, there is no authority for the battle of Winaheath, nor is there any record of any great battle of Athelstane’s against the Scots except Brunanburh.

Can we, then, identify Winaheath with Brunanburh? The objection is the date. Brunanburh was fought in 937, Eric fled from Norway in 936. We should thus (
a
) upset the whole order of events, (
b
) leave room for scarcely any interval between Egil’s two visits to England (Athelstane died in 939), and (
c
) postpone Egil’s marriage by some ten years to a date that does not fit in with the known ages of his children.

The better opinion inclines to-day to identify the two battles, correcting the whole chronological system of the saga accordingly. Still, the truth may yet be that Egil and Thorolf took part in a smaller and little-known battle in or about the year 927, to which the saga has mistakenly attributed the setting and importance of Brunanburh. If the
Höfuðlausn
episode did in fact take place in York in the year of Brunanburh (i.e. a year later than the date given by the saga), Egil might well have been the first to bring news of that battle to London. The saga’s account of Winaheath must in any case be traced ultimately to Egil’s own reminiscences; and he might easily (perhaps not
unwillingly) in later years have fallen into a confusion which might persuade himself and others that Winaheath was indeed Brunanburh, and that he had helped Athelstane to victory not in some forgotten fight but on that field of worldwide renown.

4
W
HAT TRICKSTERS THESE
E
NGLISH BE
(at yðr mundu þeir reynaz brögðóttir, enir ensku). A Welsh turncoat as long ago as the tenth century, exclaiming against ‘perfide Albion’.

CHAPTER LIII

1
S
WORD CALLED
‘L
ONG
’. Egil’s sword
(8
lines below) was called
Nadder
(naðr, ‘an adder’). Egil had another sword given him later by Arinbiorn, called
Dragvandil
(p. 146). For pet-names of weapons, cf. Skarphedinn’s axe
Ogress of war
(Rímmu-gýgr, ‘war’s-ogress’), Nj. 45, etc.; King Hakon Athelstane’s-fosterling’s sword
Quern-biter
(Kvernbítr), Har. Hfr. 43; Gisli’s sword (later reforged as a spear)
Graysteel
(Grásíða) and Skeggi’s
Warflame
(Gunnlogi), Gisl. 1, 3, etc.; Steinar’s sword
Skrymir
(p. 217), also mentioned in
Kormak’s Saga
, a story which is rich in named weapons, viz. Bersi’s sword
Whitting
(Hvítingr) ‘with a life-stone to it’ (a precious stone set in the hilt that would heal wounds given by the blade), and Midfirth-Skeggi’s sword
Sköfnung
: “There is a pouch to it, and that thou shalt let be. Sun must not shine on the pommel of the hilt. Thou shalt not bear it until fighting is forward, and when thou comest to the field, sit all alone and then draw it. Hold the edge toward thee, and blow on it. Then will a little worm creep from under the hilt. Then slope thou the sword over, and make it easy for him to creep back under the hilt”. But Kormak was “hot and hasty” and the sword “cold and slow”; he did not heed his instructions, “and the little worm came, and was not rightly done by”; and the good of the sword was spoilt, and it came groaning and creaking out of its scabbard (Korm. 9; I have followed, in the main, Collingwood’s transl.).

2
F
EATHER
(fjöðr). I.e. the blade.

3
B
YRNY-TWISTER
(brynþvari).
Brynja
, a ‘byrny’;
þvari
(þverr-, ‘across, transverse’), ‘a cross-stick’.

4
N
EITHER HAD A BYRNY
. Coats of mail were costly luxuries; even so, it is remarkable that captains like Thorolf and Egil should go without them. Query, is this connected with the ‘bare-sark’ tradition?

5
W
OOD-WROTH
(óðr). This seems to be berserks-gang.

6
L
AND-TENTS
(landtjaldar).
Tjöld
to the Northman, who is born a sailor, means naturally a
ship’s
‘tent’ (the tilt or awning for use at night, etc.; cf. our saga
passim
). For landsmen the primary suggestion is just the other way, and we feel the distinctive word ‘land’ unnecessary.

7
A
ND
A
DILS.
This, however, was a false report: see below.

CHAPTER LIV

1
L
ET THE
K
ING HAVE HIS WAY
. Thorolf is ‘fey’. Cf. Njal’s fata counsel, before the burning of Bergthorsknoll, that men should go into the house and defend it from within instead of meeting the enemy in the open. “‘Let us do’, said Helgi, ‘as our father wills; that will be best for us’. ‘I am not so sure of that,’ says Skarphedinn, ‘for now he is “fey”; but still I may well humour my father in this, by being burnt indoors along with him, for I am not afraid of my death’” (Nj. 127).

2
A
T OPEN SHIELDS
(í opna skjöldu). A manœuvre common in ancient warfare: to take your enemy on his right flank, where (because the shield is on the left arm) he is at a disadvantage if thrown on the defensive. Cf. Thucydides, v, x, where the success of Brasidas’s victorious sally from Amphipolis was helped by the incompetence of the Athenian general, τά γυμνά πρòς τούς πολεμίους δούς, “offering his unshielded flank (lit. ‘naked’) to the enemy”; i.e. Kleon allowed his right wing to be taken by Brasidas ‘at open shields’.